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Agreed, there are fictitious concepts, imaginary concepts, ones that don't correspond to reality. Your statement could also be interpreted another way, as a universal that could be instantiated but has not been until now which is different than what I am talking about. I am bringing up an eternally uninstantiable universal/concept, basically, one that cannot be instantiated. (I am talking about something that I think does not exist i.e. there is no such thing). A contradiction can't be instantiated. Yet the concept exists. You will say that contradiction (similar to "nothing") is not a universal and yet I would argue that we identify contradictions all the time. A contradiction exists only in fact as a concept/universal, there is no metaphysical version of it. But if contradictions are metaphysical, then they have to exist. I am going along because you argue universals/concepts do exist metaphysically, independent of consciousness. In that paradigm, since uninstantiated universals exist independently of consciousness, they exist even if consciousness has never observed their instance. So numbers could have existed without "things" to be counted. Such a universe does not exist and for me is unimaginable. I am also arguing that the abstraction (number) would not exist if the act of counting has never been done (ever). (I will respond to the rest of the post)

Why can't you do both? Software can't be taking up all of your time. Why not do other things after you're finished with the regular job? Why not keep your full time job, and do the other interests part time, at least for now? You may find out you're not really all that interested in writing symphonies with the majority of your time. You may find out a solid stream of income is worth more to you than you'd thought. Setting company goals is someone's full time job somewhere, and you might discover you don't really like having that responsibility, even while still appreciating the goals/purpose being set. You'll wind up discovering loads of facets to your other interests you didn't even know existed, along with how you like those facets, and the interests will inevitably become different things to you entirely than how you think about them now - maybe better, maybe worse. Fidgeting with those interests part time can show you those facets without you needing to devote time (and possible heartache) to worrying about a livelihood. In my opinion, a life "plunge" is only good when you have some realistic idea of a good outcome, whatever that means to you. But, that's from a guy who has never done a plunge and never intends to. I like the try-before-you-buy method. But definitely try. What's the point of living if you don't do the living? If you think a plunge is for you, do it. There's truth to "if it don't kill you..."

Well the argument for freely available food, shelter, medical care etc. is that it furthers wellbeing. At some point you realize that nothing is freely available.